An Inch of Time

by Peter Helton

  ‘Not much chance of seasickness on a day like this.’

  He seemed to weigh up this rash statement of mine before answering. ‘Perhaps not. Kerkyra?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sorry, I mean Corfu. Kerkyra is what the Greeks call it. Are you going there or on to Igoumenitsa?’ The fact that the names rolled so easily off his tongue probably meant this wasn’t his first trip.

  ‘No, just Corfu.’

  ‘Your first visit?’

  ‘Yes. Never been to Greece, even.’

  ‘Really?’ His tone suggested this was most unusual. ‘I watched you drive your motorhome aboard. It must be very old.’

  ‘Ancient.’

  He seemed happy with this exchange and strolled away. I sipped my water and wandered around the deck myself. Some brave souls, desperate to squeeze every shade of possible suntan from their holiday, were lying half naked on deckchairs, despite the cool breeze. Others wandered about with that aimless how-to-kill-six-hours expression that doubtlessly I would soon wear myself.

  It wasn’t until several hours later, after much purposeless drifting across upper and lower decks and another sandwich, that I noticed a hazy line appear on the horizon – the Albanian coast – and somewhere in front of that haze, as yet indistinguishable, lay the island of Corfu. For a while now we had been sailing quite close to the Ionian Sky, still gaining on her. In the absence of anything else to do, I had fixed my eyes on her, wondering what earthly reason anyone could have for following me across most of Europe. It was then that Mr Zeiss once more joined me at the port-side guard-rail. ‘So, will you spend much time on Kerkyra? You are on holiday, yes?’

  ‘Erm, yes. I’m hoping to visit a friend who moved out here a few years ago.’

  ‘Hoping?’

  ‘I’m not sure she still lives at the address I have.’ Why was I telling him this? Why didn’t I just say that I came for a week’s holiday? Boredom, probably.

  ‘A little adventure for you, then.’

  I changed the subject. ‘Looks like we’ll be overtaking the Ionian Sky any minute now.’ We had nearly drawn level with the rival ferry.

  ‘No, we won’t.’ I gave him a look that invited him to elaborate. ‘Just a bit of Greek showmanship, to let everyone know we are the faster ship. But the Ionian always docks first.’ He strolled off once more. True to his prediction, we fell behind again until the other ship was once more far ahead.

  Corfu had lifted its dramatic outline clear of the haze. We were now following dead astern of the Ionian Sky, with the darkly wooded slopes of the island’s mountains to starboard. Every inch of it appeared to be covered in vegetation, so different from the arid image of the archetypal Greek island I had held in my mind. We passed bays and beaches that looked inaccessible from the land, with villages clinging to the hillsides above them. And here too was something I had only ever read about and had assumed to be fiction: the smell of the land. Through the fierce sharpness of the sea’s ozone drifted the moist, verdant smell of land, mixed with the aroma of wood and charcoal smoke. It conjured mysterious little yearnings in my soul for things I couldn’t have put a name to. I became even more impatient to get off this windy boat and on to warm, dry land.

  Soon we entered the narrow channel between the mainland and the east coast of the island and not long after that the capital, Kerkyra, came into view. The approach was dominated by a large and ancient fortification perched on a high rock. Below it lay a surprisingly small harbour with the usual collection of drive-through buildings, customs sheds, car parks and lines of waiting vehicles. The Ionian Sky had already docked and was disgorging its cargo, mainly cars, vans and a solitary motorcycle packed so high with luggage that only the helmeted head of the rider was visible among it. I looked for the Toyota but saw no sign of it. The Ikarus Palace prepared to dock. It was time to descend to the car deck and get ready to drive on to Greek soil. Or at least Greek concrete.

  Mr Zeiss, who had been using his binoculars, came and stretched out a steady hand. I shook it. ‘What address do you have for your friend? Is it in town?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Hang on.’ I fumbled my notebook from my jacket and showed him the address.

  ‘I know it. It’s in the Old Town. Do you see the broad street over there with the huge yellow car rental sign at the corner? Follow that until you get to a square with a little greenery in the centre and mad traffic all round. Take a left at the top corner and drive down Theotoki for a couple of hundred yards and park wherever you can. Somewhere on the left you’ll find a large bookshop, Lykoudis. It’s the second or third little street on the left after that.’

  ‘Thanks. You know the place well, then.’

  ‘Reasonably.’ He paused, as if sizing me up. Below us, men were lashing thick ship’s ropes to bollards on the quay and their shouts gave me my first real experience of the Greek language. It sounded nothing like it had on the tapes. ‘My name’s Kladders, by the way.’

  ‘Honeysett,’ I offered automatically.

  ‘Well, Mr Honeysett . . . I don’t know who you are, and your story is none of my business . . . but I think you should know that you are being followed. Had you noticed?’ He stretched out a hand and pointed to a gap between two long customs sheds at the edge of the fenced-in harbour area. On the strip of tarmac visible in the gap, I could make out a flash of blue. He unslung his binoculars and offered them to me. Through their startling magnification I could make out part of the blue Toyota. From the driver’s window someone was returning the compliment by pointing a pair of binoculars in our direction. I couldn’t make out a face in the deeply shaded interior of the car but thought I could see a spark of silver hair again. After a few seconds the binoculars were withdrawn and the window slid up. Seconds later the car moved off.

  I handed back the bins. ‘Thanks. I had noticed the car before.’

  ‘Do you know who’s following you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Or why?’

  ‘Not the foggiest,’ I admitted.

  ‘In that case, take great care, Mr Honeysett.’ He raised one eyebrow at me, shook his head and walked briskly off. I pondered this for a minute and was left with one question: how did he know I was being followed? If I saw him again, I’d ask, but there was no sign of him when I got to the car deck and I had no idea what kind of vehicle he drove.

  Predictably, the van smelled of cat, but Derringer was out of sight.

  FIVE

  There was no sign of the Toyota when I finally cleared customs and rolled out on to the busy coastal road. It was a dusty place. Lining the noisy road were empty cafes, restaurants and car rental places. Immediately outside the customs building, rows of taxis were competing with carriages drawn by straw-hatted little horses and porters with handcarts offering their services to foot passengers. I found the road Kladders had mentioned and followed it. This too was lined with modern concrete houses, mostly two or three storeys high, car and motorcycle rentals, booking offices and hardware stores, billboards and signposts. I had no time to look. The traffic was intense. This was the off-season? Lorries, vans, buses and coaches seemed hell-bent on eliminating the weaker opposition, such as cars, motorbikes, scooters, pedestrians and dogs. Soon the concrete horrors gave way to more elegant, older houses, until eventually I arrived at a bustling square. All the bustle was concentrated in the streets framing an island on which benches, statuary, flower beds and bits of lawn failed to attract many visitors this evening. Despite having learnt Mediterranean driving in Turkey and having just taken a refresher course in Italy, the Greek style of locomotion took some getting used to. Cars and motorbikes had a habit of coming at me from unusual angles and Matilda’s tiny mirrors were no match for this chaos. Several times I had to break hard, which brought Derringer out in protest.

  ‘We’re stopping in a minute – in fact, as soon as I can find somewhere to abandon this thing.’ What I wanted most of all was to stop moving. I followed Kladders’s description along a broad street lined on one side w
ith trees and found a space to park under one of them. I turned off the engine and let go of the steering wheel. Three hours. Had I travelled by plane, a three-hour flight and a short taxi ride would have got me to exactly this point. Derringer’s disgruntled mewing reminded me that, of course, I wouldn’t have a cat to keep me company, and I also realized that I might never have spotted that someone was following me. I emptied the last can of Italian pet food into a cat bowl I had bought near Bologna and got out into the street. Naturally, since I had no idea what my shadow looked like, apart from the possibility of very light hair, there was little chance of spotting them once they got out of their car.

  Corfu Town did not look Greek to me. Most of its old buildings looked as Italian as anything I had seen in Italy. I later found out that most of these tall houses, with their frail-looking wrought-iron balconies, shuttered windows and pantiled roofs, were in fact a legacy of the Venetian occupation of the island.

  There didn’t seem to be many tourists. The season hadn’t really started yet – this being the first week of April – and the majority of people in the street looked like locals. What struck me most as I stood on the wide pavement and tried to get my bearings were the smells. Despite the traffic in the street, here under the trees the predominant aroma travelling on the cooling air was that of freshly roasted coffee. I soon found the reason for this: there were three coffee roasters on this street alone, pumping their seductive smells on to the evening air. A little further along, a street vendor was roasting chestnuts, while next to him a man sold pasties from a heated glass box. I pointed, paid and in return received a triangular pasty on a piece of brown paper. It was hot, crumbly and delicious, filled with cheese and spinach, and didn’t last long. So I went back and bought another.

  Most of the traffic disappeared to the left, but I walked straight on, leaving the noise behind. Following the worn pavement, I found Lykoudis bookshop. The assistant spoke good English and sold me a map of the island, with a plan of the town on the reverse side. Nearby I found a cafe that seemed to consist of a narrow doorway and three tiny zinc tables on the pavement. Two of them were occupied by three men in their late sixties, wearing grey trousers and grey jackets over knitted jumpers, despite the heat. They sat with their backs to the wall and studied me as I sank on to a chair at the third table, profoundly grateful for the fact that I was no longer in motion across Europe. The man closest to the door called something over his shoulder and a skinny boy with a faintly stained shirt emerged and said: ‘Oríste, ti thélete?’

  ‘Énan kafé,’ I told him.

  ‘Pos ton thélete?’

  ‘Skéto.’

  ‘Amésos.’ He disappeared inside.

  The whole exchange went so quickly I had to pinch myself: did I really just order a coffee in Greek? It appeared so, since the man closest to my table fired a sentence at me, obviously believing that I spoke the language. I didn’t understand even a single word of what he said, which put my four-day crash course of the language back into its proper perspective. I threw up my hands in an apologetic gesture and he turned back to his friends, his suspicions confirmed – xénos, a foreigner. Why else would he carry a map of the island?

  My kafé – a lighter version of Turkish coffee – arrived in a small white cup, together with a glass of very cold water. I slurped at the tiny bubbles on the surface; its taste fulfilled the promise of its fragrance. As I began to relax and stretched out my legs, I realized that it would probably take a bathtub of the stuff to keep me awake for much longer. The thought of another night in the van held little allure now and I was hoping for a bed. A decent shower, not the lukewarm dribble which was all Matilda could offer, and fresh sheets were what I was after. I reached into my jacket for my notebook and Morva’s address.

  It wasn’t there. I went through all the pockets – nothing. I felt along the lining where things often ended up if I forgot which pockets were sound. Still nothing. I was certain I hadn’t left it in the van. The last time I had taken it out had been to hand it to Kladders so he could read the address. But surely I had taken it back? I was wide awake now. One gulp finished the coffee. I paid what seemed like not very much at all and made my way back to the van where five minutes of furious searching under the disapproving eyes of the cat produced nothing. I tried to visualize the address. Morva Lennox, number fourteen Odos something. Something Street wasn’t going to help, but Kladders had said turn left after the bookshop. I’d find it.

  I bought the cat’s silence with another tin of tuna and walked back. Something Street, when I found it, was a narrow lane, bridged by lines of washing stretched between the houses. It was too narrow for cars but had enough space for a mad scooter rider who beeped me impatiently out of the way. Number fourteen was a tall and ancient-looking house with peeling plaster and louvred shutters at the windows. There was a row of bells, none of which displayed any names. I pushed at the door; it was on the latch. The air inside smelled damp; the scuffed marble floor tiles were wet. On a landing above the first flight of steps, a woman with steel-grey hair twisted a mop inside a zinc bucket. She wore a drab black outfit and had bandaged calves above swollen ankles and gave me a resigned look as I walked towards her across the freshly mopped floor.

  I remembered another two words from the chapter called Asking Directions and Saying What You Want. ‘Poo íne Morva Lennox?’

  She gave me a long answer from the chapter Well, You Did Ask, Dear. This time I understood at least one word: Lennox. She obviously knew the name. I told her I spoke very little Greek. She didn’t stop talking, only now it was more to herself, as she came painfully down the stairs and beckoned me to follow her by making a curious clawing motion with one hand. She led me outside and along the lane to the nearest corner and made me follow her into a souvenir shop that had everything apart from customers: bundles of sandals hanging by the door frame, cassettes and CDs of Greek music, miniature replicas of classic statuary, including some extremely priapic examples, printed tee shirts, beach paraphernalia, sunhats and sunglasses. My guide called loudly for the proprietor, whose name appeared to be Alexiiiiiiii. When he materialized, she handed me over with a single sentence that contained the name Morva, then disappeared before I remembered the Greek for ‘thank you’.

  The proprietor was a short man in his late twenties, with soft pale skin and nicotine-stained fingers. I introduced myself and we shook hands.

  ‘I am Alexis. Welcome to Corfu, Chris.’ He pronounced my name ‘Crease’. ‘You are looking for Morva? She is here no more. She is moved in the country. You are a friend?’

  ‘Yes, an old friend. That was the last address I had for her. When did she move away?’

  ‘Two years.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe more.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have her new address?’

  He waggled a vague hand, then pointed to the map I was still holding. ‘I can show where.’

  He unfolded the map and smoothed it out on the glass counter above a display of Rolex replicas. He waggled his head disapprovingly. ‘This map, it is shit map, it is very old.’

  ‘I bought it today.’

  ‘OK, is new shit. All Corfu maps are like this. They show you where they want you to go, not where you want to go. Here.’ His finger followed the red ribbon of a road across to the other side of the island, then south to where it turned into a much thinner white ribbon that stopped at the edge of a brown patch indicating a small mountain. He pointed at the brown patch, half an inch beyond which the road ended in nothing. He picked up a biro. ‘I write in, OK?’ He added a squiggle to the tail of the white road and marked the end with a cross. ‘Here. Ano Makriá. Here you find Morva Lennox. You rent a car?’

  ‘I brought my own.’

  He pulled a painful face. ‘OK, pity. Drive careful.’ He handed back the folded map and guided me out the door. ‘Tell her Alexis say “iássu”.’

  He closed the door behind me. I heard him turn the key twice.

  Not even the outskirts of Corfu managed to be all tha
t unlovely, and as the traffic thinned I had more time to look about. Predictably, tourism seemed to be the main occupation here, though once the road detached itself from the resorts by the sea and climbed into the hilly interior it also seemed to leave most of the tourist industry behind.

  Corfu was an island of trees. I had no idea how many were cut down to make way for roads, tourist villas and hotels, but there seemed to be several million left. Terrace after terrace of olive trees flew by and the sea of greenness was pierced over and over by the lances of the cypress trees. The quiet villages I drove through looked as if nothing much had changed here for decades. Most of the houses were small and simple, often whitewashed, with painted wooden or wrought-iron doors. Flowers grew in profusion, many planted into large feta tins that lined the walls. Bougainvillea framed entrances; fig trees shaded courtyards. Whatever the size of the village, there never appeared to be more than one narrow road that was negotiable by motor vehicles. I saw no tourist cars, only small tractors, well-worn pickup trucks and bikes and scooters being ridden by helmetless riders. Even though I constantly checked my mirrors, there seemed to be no sign of the blue Toyota.

  Darkness crept up on me in the hills. The next two finger-posts, written in Greek with the English spelling underneath, didn’t correspond to anything on my map. I had been steadily climbing on a narrow tarmacked road, with the winking lights of villages taunting me from across the mountainside above, but I never seemed to arrive anywhere. Here, away from the tourist traffic, the roads had been allowed to deteriorate. I drove carefully around the potholes to give the ancient suspension a chance. During the next half-hour of driving around I met only two other cars, both going in the opposite direction at twice my speed. I passed small stone dwellings that looked unlived-in and appeared to be attached to the many orchards around here, consisting mainly of orange and lemon groves. The road snaked steadily up the tree-clad mountain without ever seeming to lead anywhere. At the next turn, I stopped at a road sign. It had its English translation obscured with angry streaks of red spray paint, but the Greek writing seemed near enough to what I was looking at on my map. I took the turn. The potholed road narrowed and dipped back towards sea level, then suddenly the van’s wheels hummed happily on a short stretch of smooth black tarmac. Lights appeared ahead and a moment later I entered the village of Neo Makriá. Derringer was complaining at me from the back of the van; his patience with the constant movement, irregular toilet breaks and erratic feeding had run out. A minute later the engine started to cough, Matilda having run out of fuel. I had plain forgotten that I had changed to ‘reserve’ as I drove off the ferry. When I rattled on to the village square, the engine ran on fumes and Matilda rolled to a stop next to a young palm tree. Derringer, Matilda and I had all come to the same conclusion: enough was enough.